I really hate those "merge" lanes. I'd like to deal with them realistically, but I never see them coming, and always have to blindly cut into the next lane at the last second.

Those aren't as bad as the exits with mismarked signs on two lane highways. The arrows show both lanes as staying on the highway, then when you get up to the exit, all of a sudden it's now one lane exiting and one lane remaining on the highway. I've been caught off guard by that more times than I'd like to admit. You either have to exit (OH GOD BRAKE BRAKE BRAKE) and reenter, juke over into the left lane and hope nobody is in your way, or slam into the divider.

Those merge lanes are visible on the GPS, you'll see the road narrows when a merge lane is near.

You may also see on the GPS that the road sometimes narrows where a 4 lane highway crosses a bridge. That's a hint that the road across the bridge changes to one lane and, if you're going across the bridge, you need to think about getting into the left lane (in UK the right lane).

I just have a policy of sticking to the left/middle lane on the continent and the right/middle lane in the UK. If you get to a merge lane, be aware that the stopped traffic will jump ahead of you regardless of your speed, so be ready to straddle the center lane to bypass the traffic jam.

I really hate those "merge" lanes. I'd like to deal with them realistically, but I never see them coming, and always have to blindly cut into the next lane at the last second.

Those aren't as bad as the exits with mismarked signs on two lane highways. The arrows show both lanes as staying on the highway, then when you get up to the exit, all of a sudden it's now one lane exiting and one lane remaining on the highway. I've been caught off guard by that more times than I'd like to admit. You either have to exit (OH GOD BRAKE BRAKE BRAKE) and reenter, juke over into the left lane and hope nobody is in your way, or slam into the divider.

This, a thousand times this. The amount of times they've caught me out, I end up having to veer across and knowing my luck wiping out some car in the process. When I do take the exit the sat nav falls over and starts telling me to turn around :P

The route advisor doesn't notify you about cargo damage in the same way that it does when you damage your truck, so you're all probably scraping things and thinking you got away with it because the route advisor wasn't complaining.